ChatGPT and Claude prompts for a lender ready business plan

What should you paste in before the first ChatGPT business plan prompt?

Your real numbers and your real situation, in one message, before any prompt. Paste: revenue and net profit from your last two tax returns; a year to date profit and loss; average monthly deposits from the last six bank statements; every business debt with payment and balance; the amount, product and term you want; what the money buys, with quotes; the owners with years of experience; your location and service area. The document checklist has the full set.

Then one instruction that governs everything after: use only the numbers I gave you, mark anything you cannot source as a placeholder in square brackets, and never invent a competitor, a statistic or a lender.

Prompts for the executive summary and company description

Write the executive summary last, after the numbers are settled, but lenders read it first.

Write a half page executive summary for a business plan for a loan, using only the figures I pasted: what the business does, the exact amount, product and term requested, the three largest uses of funds, last year's revenue and net profit, the monthly payment and the cash flow that covers it. No adjectives, no unsourced claims.

Write a company description under 150 words: legal name, entity type and state, date operations began, owners with percentages, location, licenses, and what we sell. For anything missing from what I pasted, write a placeholder in square brackets instead of guessing.

Prompts for the market and the products and services sections

These two sections are where models invent the most, so both prompts forbid unsourced figures.

Write the market section under 250 words: my customers in one sentence, how many are in my service area with a source you can name and link, my three nearest competitors from my list with one line each on how I differ, and the price range customers pay today. No source, no number: write a placeholder.

Write the products and services section as a short table and one paragraph: each product or service, its price, its gross margin from my figures, and its share of last year's revenue. Then say what the loan changes about this list.

Prompts for management, operations and marketing

Write the management and ownership section: for each owner and key manager, role, years of directly relevant experience, and the two accomplishments from the background I pasted that a lender would care about. State who guarantees the loan. No adjectives; use years and results.

Write the operations section under 150 words: premises and lease term, key equipment owned and to be bought with the loan, main suppliers and terms, staffing today and after funding. Use my figures for rent and payroll.

Write the marketing and sales section under 150 words: how customers find us today by channel with each channel's share of last year's revenue, the cost to win a customer where I gave it, and exactly which channels the loan funds, with amounts from the use of funds.

Prompts for the funding request and the financial projections

Build the projections in a spreadsheet or our financial projections builder, then paste the output and ask the model to explain it. Do not ask a chat model to invent a cash flow.

Write the funding request: amount, product and term, then a sources and uses table where sources equal uses: the loan, my owner injection, and each use with the quote I gave you. Then one paragraph on repayment: the monthly payment I gave you, annual debt service including existing loans, and the debt service coverage ratio with the formula shown.

Here are my 12 month cash flow and three year projections. Write a one page assumptions narrative: for each major line, the basis (last year's actual, a signed contract, a quote, or a growth rate) and the source. Flag any line where growth exceeds 25 percent year over year or gross margin moves more than 5 points, and say what a lender will ask.

Financial projections for a business loan explains what the lender checks in that output.

What do you verify by hand before it goes to a lender?

Every number, every name and every source. Read the draft with your tax return and bank statements open and tick each figure. Then check the names: lenders, programs, competitors, suppliers, licenses. Models produce confident text about programs that do not exist and competitors that closed years ago.

Market sizes need a source you have opened yourself; if you cannot find it, delete the number. Check that sources equal uses, that the coverage ratio in the summary matches the projections, and that dates and ownership match your formation documents. Finally, read it as the underwriter would, asking four questions: how much, for what, can the cash flow carry it, and has this person done this before. How to write a business plan for a loan explains why those four decide the file.

Why can lenders tell when an AI business plan is generic, and how do you avoid it?

Because they read dozens of them, and the generic ones share the same tells: round numbers with no source, revenue that doubles every year with flat costs, every risk described as mitigated, buzzwords in place of a customer, and a national market section when the business serves two zip codes. An underwriter sees these on the first page and reads the financials with less trust.

The fix is specificity, which the prompts above force. Name your three competitors and your top five customers. State your lease term and your rent. Say what went wrong last year and what you changed. An AI business plan written from your own data reads like yours; one written from a template with no data reads like everyone's. The difference is the first message, not the model.

Can the same documents go straight into the application?

Yes. The tax returns, bank statements and financials you pasted for the plan are the documents a lender needs, and your assistant can file them for you. Connect Claude or ChatGPT to our MCP server, share the documents and the finished plan, and the assistant fills the application, flags what is missing, matches lenders in every category and submits with your approval. See the Claude page, the ChatGPT page or the agents hub.

It is free for your business; lenders pay us when a loan funds. The assistant cannot change your numbers or guarantee approval, and nothing reaches a lender until you say so. Using AI to get a business loan walks through the process.